AN ASYLUM seeker who dedicated his life to helping HIV sufferers faces being booted out of the country.

Perparim Demaj, who fled his native Kosovo seven years ago during the troubles, has been asked to leave the country by the Home Office despite becoming a pillar of the community in Manchester.

Now a massive campaign to prevent the deportation has been launched by civic leaders at Manchester City Council, who were forced to sack Mr Demaj because the Home Office removed his right to live and work in England.

For the past five years the 32-year-old Kosovan, who lives on his own in a flat in Chorlton, has held a steady job as a HIV support worker with Manchester City Council, paid tax and insurance, and learned almost perfect English from scratch.

Mr Demaj, the father of two young children, told the Reporter: "I've been in Chorlton since I arrived. It's where I learned English. I am happy here - it is my home. If I go back to Kosovo I will get killed." Steven Barksby, a HIV sufferer who was supported by Mr Demaj before his right to work was removed, said: "I can't even begin to describe how special Perparim was as a support worker.

"As someone with HIV I often have to deal with ignorance and insensitivity, but Perparim really seemed to understand."

Whitehall bureaucrats are said to be engineering Mr Demaj's deportation because, although he was given temporary leave to remain in the UK after fleeing the war-torn region of Drenica in 1998, his application for asylum and subsequent appeals have been exhausted.

Mr Demaj, who is fluent in six languages, must sign in with immigration officials every month, knowing they could detain and deport him without notice.

His wife and two sons, aged six and eight, live in another part of England.

The asylum seeker was dismissed by reluctant bosses at Manchester City Council after his own efforts to clarify his position prompted the Home Office to re-exmine his file and withdraw his right to work and live in the country. But his employers joined with UNISON to host a press conference this week at the 'Perparim Demaj Must Stay' campaign.

Councillor Richard Leese, leader of Manchester City Council, said: "Manchester would not exist as an international city if it were not for immigrants who come here and bring their enthusiasm to work.

"We have lost a very good worker and Manchester is at risk of losing exactly the sort of citizen we would like all our citizens to be."

Tony Bethell, Mr Demaj's ward councillor, said: "It's a disgrace that such a productive person, who has found refuge in our country, can be treated in such an appaling way.

"This country is calling out for industrious people but, in this case, the carpet has been ripped from beneath a settled man."

Chorlton councillor Val Stevens added: "There is cross-party support to see the moral and social terms of this case outweigh the technicalities."

John Elton, an organiser at Chorlton workshop, where Mr Demaj teaches non-English speaking people as a volunteer, said: "Peparim has so much to offer in so many ways."

Wendy Allison, UNISON Manchester assistant branch secretary, said: "If sent Perparim is sent back to Kosovo there is a very real prospect that he could lose his life, but Perparim's former colleagues, service users, friends and local community feel they also have much to lose if he goes. He has made a big impact on so many people, a lot of whom are vulnerable and often forgotten by society.

"It is disgraceful that someone who has contributed so much to the community, and paid taxes for four and a half years should be left destitute and forced out of the country."

Mr Demaj, of Weller Avenue, said he had been free from the nightmares of whether he would live or die from one day to the next, since moving to Manchester. He added: "The support I have received has been overwhelming. I never expected to have made such a place for myself here."

Council bosses have recently launched a further application outside the asylum process for a work permit which would allow Mr Demaj to enter a social work traineeship. At the moment, he is living on donations, ineligible for benefits under asylum laws.

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